Junction City ? Four military installations in Kansas should fare well in the upcoming rounds of base realignment and closures, said John Montgomery, Kansas civilian aide to the secretary of the Army.

Fort Riley, Fort Leavenworth, McConnell Air Force Base and Forbes Field are four installations with U.S. military value in Kansas, said Montgom-ery, who also heads Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ military af-fairs coordinating council.

Montgom-ery said the council was considering whether to hire a consulting firm to determine how the state’s installations could take advantage of the realignment.

Base closure talk now comes a bit early, Montgomery said.

“Before you can decide what you need, the force structure has to be decided. That’s what the Department of Defense is doing now. It’s supposed to submit that by February 2004,” he said.

After the force structure is decided, “military value will be a big factor in determining which installations stay, and Fort Riley has a big military value,” Montgomery said.

Forbes Field serves as a deployment platform for Fort Riley, has an Air National Guard refueling unit and is a commercial airfield. McConnell has active Air Force and Air National Guard units on base, as well as the Army reserve, he said.